When Is It Optimal to Delegate: The Theory of Fast-Track Authority

With fast-track authority (FTA), the US Congress delegates trade-policy authority to the President by committing not to amend a trade agreement. Why would it cede such power? We suggest an interpretation in which Congress uses FTA to forestall destructive competition between its members for protectionist rents. In our model: (i) FTA is never granted if an industry operates in the majority of districts; (ii) The more symmetric the industrial pattern, the more likely is FTA, since competition for protectionist rents is most punishing when bargaining power is symmetrically distributed; (iii) Widely disparate initial tari§s prevent free trade even with FTA

Fast-Track Authority: A Hold-Up Interpretation.

A central institution of US trade policy is Fast-Track Authority (FT), by whichCongress commits not to amend a trade agreement that is presented to it for ratifica-tion, but to subject the agreement to an up-or-down vote.We offer a new interpretation of FT based on a hold-up problem. If the US gov-ernment negotiates a trade agreement with the government of a smaller economy, asthe negotiations proceed, businesses in the partner economy, anticipating the openingof the US market to their goods, may make sunk investments to take advantage ofthe US market, such as quality upgrades to meet the expectations of the demandingUS consumer. As a result, when the time comes for ratification of the agreement, thepartner economy will be locked in to the US market in a way it was not previously.At this point, if Congress is able to amend the agreement, the partner country hasless bargaining power than it didex ante, and so Congress can make changes that areadverse to the partner. As a result, if the US wants to convince such a partner countryto negotiate a trade deal, it mustfirst commit not to amend the agreementex post.Inthis situation, FT is Pareto-improving

Child development and the aims of road safety education

Pedestrian accidents are one of the most prominent causes of premature injury, handicap and death in the modern world. In children, the problem is so severe that pedestrian accidents are widely regarded as the most serious of all health risks facing children in developed countries. Not surprisingly, educational measures have long been advocated as a means of teaching children how to cope with traffic and substantial resources have been devoted to their development and provision. Unfortunately, there seems to be a widespread view at the present time that education has not achieved as much as had been hoped and that there may even be quite strict limits to what can be achieved through education. This would, of course, shift the emphasis away from education altogether towards engineering or urban planning measures aimed at creating an intrinsically safer environment in which the need for education might be reduced or even eliminated. However, whilst engineering measures undoubtedly have a major role to play in the effort to reduce accidents, this outlook is both overly optimistic about the benefits of engineering and overly pessimistic about the limitations of education. At the same time, a fresh analysis is clearly required both of the aims and methods of contemporary road safety education. The present report is designed to provide such an analysis and to establish a framework within which further debate and research can take place

Placing the transfer of learning at the heart of HRD Practice

Training evaluation is a key area of Human Resource Development, however, measuring the effectiveness of training and the transfer of learning from a training programme to the workplace can be a challenging activity. This is even more problematic for a training provider who does not have the continuous relationship or access to performance measures of an in-house training department. This paper reports on the evaluation of a training model, assessing the impact from introduction to completion of the cycle. There are three partners in this research project: the training company, the client organisation and the university researchers. Synaptic Change Ltd is a training consultancy delivering bespoke training to organisations. Utilising a case study approach, this project reports on the evaluation of their training model through its introduction at Connect Housing, a charitable housing and support provider. This presents an interesting context for the study as researchers have suggested the distinctive value led culture of the Voluntary Sector can support a strong learning culture within the organisation. The project seeks to assess the value of learning to the organisation derived from the introduction of the model. The paper explores theoretical and empirical research concerning the evaluation of training and discusses the context of the case study organisation. It then positions the methodology employed and how data will be collected. As a working paper, the findings are not available at this time but will be presented and discussed at the UFHRD conference

Isomorphic controllers and Dynamic Tuning: invariant fingering over a tuning continuum

The tuning invariance is where the relationship among the intervals of a given scale remain the same over a range of tunings but requires that the frequency differences are glossed over to expose the similarities. Tuning invariance can be a musically useful property by enabling dynamic tuning which is the real-time changes to the tuning of all sounded notes as a tuning variable changes along a smooth continuum. The mathematical and perceptual abstractions that are the prerequisite of this dynamic tuning are greatly discussed. Other topics being discussed include the identification of the note layouts that are tuning invariant, the meaning of the "same" across a range of tunings for a given interval and the definition of "range of tunings" for a given temperament

Revised stratigraphy of the Blanchetown Clay, Murray Basin: age constraints on the evolution of paleo Lake Bungunnia

Paleo Lake Bungunnia covered more than 40 000 km2 of southern Australia during the Plio-Pleistocene, although the age and origin of the lake remain controversial. The Blanchetown Clay is the main depositional unit and outcrop at Nampoo Station in far-western New South Wales provides the most continuous lacustrine section preserved in the basin. Here the Blanchetown Clay represents the maximum lake fill and comprises: (i) a basal well-sorted sand with interbedded clay (Chowilla Sand), representing initial flooding at the time of lake formation; (ii) a thick sequence of green-grey clay comprised dominantly of kaolinite and illite, with the apparently cyclic occurrence of illite interpreted to represent cool and dry glacial climatic intervals; and (iii) a 2.6 m-thick sequence of finely laminated silt and silty clay, here defined as the Nampoo Member of the Blanchetown Clay. New magnetostratigraphic data constrain the age of the oldest lake sediments to be younger than 2.581 Ma (Matuyama-Gauss boundary) and probably as young as 2.4 Ma. This age is significantly younger than the age of 3.2 Ma previously suggested for lake formation. The youngest Blanchetown Clay is older than 0.781 Ma (Brunhes-Matuyama boundary) and probably as old as 1.2 Ma. The Nampoo Station section provides a framework for the construction of a regional Plio-Pleistocene stratigraphy in the Murray Basin.<br /

Sports injury prevention is complex: We need to invest in better processes, not singular solutions.

In recent years an understanding has developed that sports injuries are the emergent outcomes of complex, dynamic systems. Thus, the importance of local contextual factors on injury outcomes is increasingly being acknowledged. These realisations place injury prevention research at a crossroads. Currently, injury prevention researchers develop universally applicable injury prevention solutions, but the adoption of these solutions in practice is low. This occurs because implementation contexts are both unique and dynamic in nature, and as a result singular, static solutions are often incompatible. In contrast, practitioners address injury prevention through iterative cycles of trial and error, aiming to optimise the injury prevention process within their own unique contexts. The purpose of this critical review is to draw attention to the misalignment between research and practice-based approaches to injury prevention. In light of this, we propose alternative research approaches that acknowledge the process-driven nature of injury prevention in practice. We propose that a core focus of sport injury prevention research should be to provide practitioners with useful and relevant information to support their decision-making around their localised injury prevention practice. Through this approach injury prevention research ceases to be about what works, and begins to engage with understanding what works in what contexts and why

Fast-track authority: A hold-up interpretation

Under Fast-Track Authority (FT), the US Congress commits to an up-or-down vote without amendments for any trade agreement presented for ratification. We interpret FT in terms of a hold-up problem. If the US negotiates an agreement with a smaller economy, businesses there may make sunk investments for the US market. At the ratification stage, the partner economy will be locked in to the US in a way it was not previously and Congress can make changes adverse to the partner, so to convince the partner to negotiate, it must first commit not to amend the agreement. FT is then Pareto-improving